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A custom edition of the CryEngine will be made available for external PSP2 developers, Sony has announced.
Crytek, the Germany-headquartered games and middleware group, had not personally revealed its support for the PSP2, though its cover has been blown by an SCE Japan website.
The news could raise the eyebrows of rival game engine group Epic Games, whose Unreal Engine – a product similar in technical sophistication to CryEngine – is also available for the PSP2.
The inclusion of both Unreal Engine and CryEngine is another ringing endorsement of the technological prowess of Sony’s upcoming handheld.
Last month at an event in Tokyo, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney said the PSP2’s multi-core GPU “is roughly 4x as powerful as any portable we’ve previously seen.”
Other developers, such as Id Software co-founder John Carmack, believes the PSP2 is favourably distinct from technically similar devices such as the iPhone.
Though there will not always be a big difference in processing power between the PSP2 and new editions of the iPhone, the latter’s dependence on memory for a slick operating system leaves less for developers to play with. Carmack says the low demands of the PSP2 operating system will mean superior game graphics despite similar memory and processing speeds.
The PSP2 is said will feature an ARM Cortex-A9 processor.
Over a dozen development tool and game engine firms have thrown their weight behind Sony’s upcoming handheld – you can find them all here.
